Stay on My Arm, You Little Charmer
by SuavePanda
Summary: Deryn and Alek, at home in the morning.


**well, it's been a while. hi again.**

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Deryn wakes up earlier than usual because she forgot to close the blinds and the sun is in her eyes. She tries to ignore it, pulls the covers up over her head and turns to face the other way, but now that she's up, she can't fall back asleep, and that's that. She crawls out of bed and tugs on a shirt—it's a bit too loose, and probably not hers—and then she thinks, _Breakfast_.

Her room is an absolute mess, and Deryn has to step over clothes and shoes and kick aside a knot guide just to be able to open her door. It takes a lot out of her, to be honest, because she's only just woken up, and so she stands in the hallway for a second, leans against the wall as she runs her fingers through her hair in an attempt to get it to lie flat. The attempt fails miserably, which doesn't really matter at all, because the only other person in the house is Alek, and his hair's always a mess. So. Deryn doesn't really mind.

It's not a surprise, when she gets to the kitchen, to find that all they have left of the cereal is the empty box, and that they have two spoiled and unopened cartons of milk shoved all the way to the back of the fridge; she and Alek like to see who can catch more pieces of dry cereal in their mouth without letting any touch the ground, and Harry's currently winning with a record of twenty-three in a row. It's beyond unfair, and Deryn suspects that he practices at night, when she's in bed. So she makes toast instead, one slice in each of the toaster's four slots, and then she covers two of them with orange marmalade, and two with raspberry preserves.

Deryn takes a bite of toast with raspberry preserves as she walks into the living room. Alek's asleep on the floor by the couch, and she stands over him for a second, eating her toast and debating whether or not to wake him up, before finally giving in and poking him in the cheek with her toe.

"Rise and shine, sweet thing," she sing-songs, and Alek just swats her foot away and rolls over.

"No," he says, but it sounds a lot more like, "Nngghh." Deryn figures she's very lucky that she happens to speak fluent Alek.

She pokes him with her toe again.

"Is that your foot?" Alek asks.

"No," Deryn says, and Alek makes a face like he doesn't know whether to smile or be annoyed.

"That's really gross," he says, and he sits up, moves the short distance from the floor to the couch. He tucks his knees up, making sure that there's enough room for Deryn, and so she sits down, and when Alek stretches his legs out over her lap, she rests the toast plate on his shins.

"Luckily you love me enough to let me get away with it," Deryn says, and then she jokes, "Did you know that if you live here, you get a room with a bed in it and everything?"

"Reading Chaucer," Alek explains. "These things happen."

"Ah," Deryn says, starting in on her second piece of toast. "The ritual of the newly-British male."

"Of course," Alek says.

They sit there for a minute after that, neither of them saying anything, just Deryn eating her toast and Alek lying there with an arm over his eyes. But then Alek sits up, leans his weight back on his elbows, and says, "Are you going give me a piece of toast?"

Deryn smiles cheekily at him and asks, "And what do I get in return?" She waggles her eyebrows at him, even though sexual innuendo doesn't make him blush anymore, not like it did back on the Leviathan.

"Nothing," Alek says. "This isn't the barter system."

"What?" Deryn says, and she looks around the room like she's only just realizing where she is. "Then what am I doing here?"

Alek laughs a little, the type of laughter that's mostly just a rush of air out his nose, and says, "C'mon."

Deryn sighs like it's a big hardship, sharing her toast, but she slides her plate over anyways.

"You're the best," Alek says, and he grabs a piece. When he takes a bite, he fixes her with a surprised look and says, "Marmalade?" It's his favorite, she knows.

"I don't know how you eat it," Deryn says. "Disgusting, that is." And it's true; she hates orange marmalade, and the only reason it's on two pieces of the toast is because the toast was for him in the first place.

"You'll come around to it," Alek says to her, like he knows everything. And then, "Oh, hey. I was looking for that." He jerks his chin towards the shirt that she's wearing.

"Finders, keepers, princey," Deryn says, and she tugs on a loose curl of Alek's hair.

"Alright," Alek agrees around a mouthful of toast. "You left Bovril in my room; I found him last night."

"But Bovril loves me best," Deryn argues, leaning back against Alek's shoulder and waving her toast at him accusingly. "You can't take the poor beastie from his mother."

Alek just laughs and takes her other piece of toast.


End file.
